


Enigmatic

by mjoInir



Category: House M.D.
Genre: And then canon, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Drama & Romance, Eventual Fluff, Eventual Relationships, Explicit Language, F/M, Greg House Being an Asshole, House Being House, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-24
Updated: 2019-01-24
Packaged: 2019-10-15 10:23:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17526989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mjoInir/pseuds/mjoInir
Summary: Elizabeth Tate appeared to have met her match when she comes across Greg House, and little did she know that she would wind up working at the same hospital as him.Their metaphorical dance leads to a lot of ups, and certainly a lot of downs.





	Enigmatic

**Author's Note:**

> Katherine Tate (or my Chase/OC) and Constance Parker (or my Wilson/OC) don't come in until later on, and this one is focused on Greg and Beth. I will eventually be uploading the stories that focus on Kate and Connie! Feedback is most welcome!

Elizabeth Tate was a very smart woman, finishing high school early, easily getting into the University of Pennsylvania for the pre-med program — much to her father's wishes. Then, she decided on becoming a Psychiatrist, before focusing in on forensic psychology. She gained her PhD by twenty-four, and set into the workforce. But after just two years of interviewing criminals, and aiding the police of Philadelphia, she decided to go back to school and fully follow in her father's footsteps. He was a neurosurgeon, and so after just under five years, that's what she became. She doubled in neurology and neurosurgery, with thoughts of possibly returning to fully study immunology, but that stayed on the back burner.

Elizabeth Tate became a familiar name when discussing the topic of neuroscience, as several of her published Medical Journals turned several heads, along with published research. But she found working in a lab, studying brain matter to be boring, so she started looking into working as a neurosurgeon, or at least, a neurologist, at a hospital. She shadowed her father, along with several of his colleagues, and she started making her resume look impeccable. Volunteering, charity, tons of hours working under a widely known neurosurgeon, Henry Khan (since she believed adding her father to the list would look a little biased), and loads of training hours, both diagnosing patients (on things that turned out to be brain or nerve related, with also a wide variety of other patients) and on actual surgery. Being able to be a consult would usually work in her favor, so she pulled the long hours with her chin held high. She wanted to cover all the ground she could. She finished her residency by May, 2000, and so a job search began — seeing as she did not want to work in New York City much longer.

She was not completely positive on which hospital she wanted to work at, hopefully one on the east coast, but she did not bias any of her searches.

Not even two weeks later, at one medical conference in Boston, where she was asked to speak at on behalf of one of her papers, she met Dr Gregory House. It was mostly offhanded witty banter at first, but then she became interesting, and their metaphorical dance began.

"Psychiatry and neuroscience? Your parents must've hated you." Greg told her, sipping his drink, watching her steadily.

"Oh, then your parents must've loved you when you began studying nephrology and infectious disease. A true hero."

Greg rolled his eyes, but he was smiling, "Tell me, do your patients get to cry on your shoulder before or after brain surgery?"

She leaned forward slightly, and with a wild grin, "That's just the thing! They find out you studied psychiatry and bam! Suddenly, you're learning all about all of their sob stories and all you're trying to do is operate."

Greg chuckled, genuinely, which after his infarction and the break up with Stacy, it was a very rare sound to hear. "Right, I'm sure you eat sob stories for breakfast."

She shrugged, taking a slow sip of her drink, eyes calculating the man in front of her. He was easily older then her, though, maybe not by very much. The cane by his side surely told a story, as did the obvious snark. She knew deducing people was probably wrong of her, but she had the means, and she surely liked unraveling people. But his story seemed to be locked up tight.

"I'm surprised you're not taking me for a narcissist. Most people in my field can be." She thought briefly about her father, before brushing it away.

His eyes brightened, "Who says that I don't?"

Their banter continued for most of the night, only ceasing when Dr. James Wilson came to grab his friend. It had been a decidedly long night for the oncologist, because his marriage with his second wife was crumbling and he was beginning to realize it was not something he could fix. So he took to ignoring it, and that was a main reason as to why he had let House drag him away from his wife and to the conference.

"House, I'm going back to the hotel," and it was then that James realized his friend had been speaking to a woman, a beautiful woman, in a pleasant manner. "Oh! _Oh_ ,"

Elizabeth watched the oncologist carefully, "You bring up a good point, as it's getting late and my flight's tomorrow morning." She stood, a smile gracing her lips, figuring to go with mysterious and nonchalant with her new friend. "Have a good rest of your night, Greg," and she sauntered off.

Wilson turned to House, an eyebrow raised, but all House could muster was a low whistle, "Damn."

* * *

Elizabeth had not gotten Greg's number, but to be quite fair, it was easy to track down a doctor. Especially one with a reputation, such as Greg's. She was focused on finding a hospital fit for her, and then maybe she would consider pursuing the diagnostician, or at least, putting herself in his orbit so he could pursue her.

She sent her resume at practically every job opening that she saw and it did not take very long for them to start calling back. Princeton-Plainsboro was at the top of her list and she spoke to the Dean of Medicine, a seemly very professional, but kind woman named Lisa Cuddy. They set up an interview for later that week.

Elizabeth got herself a nice hotel and drove down the evening before, going over typical questions in her head and rehearsing. Her father keyed her in on questions she should expect, no matter where she went, but she wanted to step away from his greatness and make her own.

The area seemed nice enough, she did a quick search prior to see what apartments went for in the nicer part of Princeton, and to her, it was reasonable. She did not want to jinx anything, but she felt confident.

The morning of the interview, she allowed herself time to get ready — do her yoga, shower, change into her blouse and pleated skirt. She curled her blonde hair into delicate waves, and added foundation to her face, before completing it with blush, a light colored eyeshadow and mascara. She did not want to go to such an extreme, but she wanted to look nice.

She set out for the appointment, nerves working their way through her system. She had a folder in hand, filled with recommendations, accomplishments, and topped off with her resume. She entered the hospital with her shoulders set back, taking a deep breath to steady herself.

When she met Lisa, she felt some sort of ease wash over her. Both women had worked tooth and nail to get to where they were, and Elizabeth could sense that almost immediately. She was relieved to be meeting with Lisa before the hiring committee, as it would allow Elizabeth to get her footing.

Their discussion was quaint, to the point. After just a few short minutes, Lisa led Elizabeth towards where the committee had assembled. She sat before them, and allowed them all of their questions, answering them exactly how they wanted. She was good at reading people, figuring out what they wanted to hear. But she did try to answer honestly. Elizabeth wanted a good fit — as she hoped to work at the hospital until she retired, or decided to go into teaching, whichever came first.

"Thank you for coming today, Dr. Tate," Lisa told her with a small smile.

And that was when Elizabeth knew she had it. She smiled in return, "Thank you for having me."

"We'll give you a call in a day or two."

Elizabeth nodded, "Thank you again."

She found her exit and gave a relieved sigh. She figured it premature to call her father, and inform him of the news, so she dialed her life-long friend instead.

"Rachel!"

_"Well, how did it go?"_

"Never better. I'm pretty sure I've got it."

_"That's wonderful! I'm proud of you, Beth,"_

"Thank you, Rach,"

Elizabeth moved into the lobby, putting her cell back into her purse and began her way towards the exit.

"Fancy seeing you here."


End file.
